Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club

We reload our Junior ammunition with a surplus powder, WC-844.  It is available only once or twice a year and we jump on an opportunity to buy 24 or 32 pounds in a single purchase just in case it doesn’t show up again.

But, unlike commercial powders which are manufactured to be consistent from container to container, military powders do not have the same lot-to-lot consistency.  Different lots may vary and when the military arsenals load ammunition, they vary the charge weight in the cartridge to get a specified velocity within pressure limits.  So, an M193 round loaded at Lake City in 1998 may have used 24.3 grains of WC-844, but an LC 2015 cartridge might only have had 23.8 grains.  When we use powder from pulled down ammunition, the powder can be a mix of who knows how many different powder lots – we only know that it is WC-844.  We need all of our powder to be the same for accuracy and safety reasons.

As the picture shows, we had five different jugs of WC-844.  Now, they might all have come out of the same drum of surplus pull down powder — but then again they might not. To make sure that all the powder is the same, I have to blend it together – a process not terribly different from mixing flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to make a cake.  You pour a little out of one jug, add in some from another, and stir well (with a wooden paddle).  Then you repeat until you have all of the powder from the five jugs in one big bucket – all mixed up into a consistent batch.

That is when you realize that you have about 35-pounds of smokeless powder sitting in an open bucket in your garage – pucker time.  You pour it back into the black anti-static plastic jugs with a glass cup and once it’s all back – you give a big WHEW! 

Now we have our powder blended for the summer of 2023.  I have to do test loads to make sure that we are not going to have any pressure issues – but that should be done by mid-November.  Mark Walters and I have looked at many fired cases, and we think we will reduce our load by a half-grain for 2023 – a basic load of 23.5 grains from the 24.0 we used in 2022.  That should not have any real difference in zeroes and muzzle velocity, but it will make life a bit easier on rifles and cases.

It is amazing what ideas can come out of a trip over to Port Clinton, Camp Perry and a session at Small Arms Firing School and National Matches.  Once the Juniors saw everything that was happening over there – they wanted to do it!

So, over the end of summer we managed to put on a Rattle Battle – but the Juniors wanted to shoot a Sniper Match.  As we all know, the Vintage Sniper Match is shot with old guns; M1903’s, M1903A4’s, M1C’s, M1D’s and several rifles from other countries.  The Juniors don’t shoot those old wooden guns, so we thought we would just shoot a Vintage Sniper Match format and let the Juniors shoot their service rifles just to get the flavor of the match.

I first thought we could shoot a Sniper Match on a Thursday at practice – but several “not Juniors” said they would like to shoot as well, so someone (not me) had the great idea that we could shoot it after the Mid-Range Match last Saturday; so we did.  I set up two classes for the match; Vintage Class for “old  wooden guns” and an Open class for everything else.  We would shoot the usual SR-3 target at 300 yards and then just to add some interest – we moved about 80-yards back to a firing line at the front of the mower house and shot on the MR-63 target.

The Sniper Match is a Team Match and teams are known for their imaginative team names.  We had four teams initially sign up for the match –but one team had to drop out (a casualty of old age, cold and Arthurite-is) and we had a three team competition.  The overall favorite team for the Match was the team of Mark and Mark (Mark Walters and Mark McKee).  Mark McKee, the old bear, came out of hibernation just for this match!  This pair are serious shooters –  a nationally ranked team in the CMP Vintage Sniper Match competition at Camp Perry – usually finishing well into the medal classes with their scores.  They bring a pair of well-tuned M1903’s to the line, both with the Unertl 8X externally adjusted scopes shooting optimized match loads.

The next Team was the Branson Bunch, the father-daughter team of Geoff and Emma.  Geoff and Emma had an ammunition shortage, so they had to borrow FWRR Junior ammunition and both of them shot Emma’s service rifle.

The final team was The Coot and The Cutie; Larry Beardsley and Kileen Shaffer.  Larry was shooting an M1903A4 with a  4X Weaver K25-F and LC66 M2 Ball ammo and Miss Kileen shot her service rifle.

We had never shot this match at FWRR – so it was a bit of a learning experience, but once we went through a couple of the LOAD AND BE READY, TARGETS, UNLOAD AND DISMOUNT command cycles – things went very smoothly.

After the first stage at 300-yards, the competition was pretty close.  The Branson Bunch, with their modern service rifle, was narrowly out in front with a team aggregate of 193-3X.  Astonishingly – The Coot and The Cutie were in second place with a pair of 94’s for a team aggregate of 188-3X.  Mark and Mark had a couple of shots wander out into the far regions and came off the line at 300-yards with a 182-5X.

Then, we packed up, switched to the MR-63 face and moved back to the extended range.  This was a true unknown distance – we had not lasered the move-back so all shooters had to establish new zeroes after some sighting shots.  The five-minute sighter period was a bit hectic, and the wind had picked up a bit as the afternoon wore on.

Mark and Mark’s experience showed as they quickly settled into a steady pattern of good shots.  The wind blew them around a bit, but they also hung a lot of shots into the middle of the target ending up with another 182-5X; a very consistent team effort.  It goes to show that Old Age, Cunning and Practice do pay off after all!

The Branson Bunch struggled a bit after the move back.  Their second string had a number of shots wandering wide both upwind and downwind as they fought wind conditions.  They ended up at the longer range with a 159-1X.

The Coot and The Cutie shot last.  The door was open for them to snatch a victory off the table if they could hold their performance from 300-yards.  But, then The Coot made a very bad strategic decision.  He decided to change from the LC66 M2 Ball ammo he had shot at 300-yards to 168-grain Hornady BTHP Match loads.  BAD MOVE BUBBA!  The heavier ammo shot to a different zero – not just elevation, but windage as well. The Coot started turning knobs and promptly turned the windage knob the wrong way – then turned it further the wrong way on the next shot. Then, getting flustered – he proceeded to cross fire on the third shot for record.  After turning the windage so far right that the next shot was a Miss, he finally managed to get back into the scoring rings for the last few shots.  The Cutie did what she could do to salvage the day, but the damage was done. Her 88-1X only brought the team up to a 143-1X for the extended range stage.

At the end of the day, Mark and Mark – with their pair of old wooden Vintage M1903’s carried the day with a match aggregate of 364-10X.  The Branson Bunch followed with a 352-4X and The Coot and The Cutie trailed with a 331-4X.

It was fun though.  Gary Mabis, who was watching – made the comment that we should do it again when he could shoot.  I suspect that once the girls get over their distrust of the big gun, they will want to try the Vintage Match at Port Clinton.  And, I suspect we will work one of these into next summer’s schedule.

Thanks to everyone for a fun match to close out the year!

What a Glorious day for a shooting match!

On Saturday, October 8th we closed out the 2022 High Power season with a Mid-Range 300-yard Prone Match.  The weather co-operated with brisk but not brutal temperatures and cloudy bright to clear skies.  The winds made shooting as bit challenging with winds fish-tailing from southwest to northeast at as much as about 10 MPH – but with periods of calm as well.  Fourteen shooters came out and we had almost two full relays.

All of our shooters were well experienced shooters, so we were able to run the match as an infiltration match.  The shooters were allowed to decide how they wanted to come on and off the line and we gave a total block time to finish the match.  Some folks decided they wanted to shoot straight through; some shot alternate shooters and some shot two matches and rested one.  It worked very well and things moved as smoothly as just about any match has in a long time.

We had planned the match as a late start match to let shooters from distant places come over without having to get up at oh-dark-thirty and the scheme worked out well.  We had three shooters come over from the Lima Sabers – it was good to see those guys at our FWRR range.

And – to top the day off; the shooting was excellent. Fourteen shooters shot three matches each, for a total of 42 matches.  There were 8 iron sight matches, the rest were scope matches.  Of the 42 matches, 19 matches scored 190 or better – pretty good shooting.

In the iron sight matches, Joe Bakies from Lima Sabers took top iron with his third match score of 200-11X.  Norb Norden took second iron with a 184-4X and Mark Walters closed out the money with a 178-6X.

In any-sight, the top shooter was Geoff Branson with a 200-15X.  Ron Dague was second in any-sight with a 200-8X. Bob Working dropped a point and took third with a 199-6X.  It was a tough day and it only took one little error to cost you!

The High Match Aggregate was shot by Joe Bakies with a 596-32X.  (Joe shot all three matches with iron sights).  Geoff Branson took Second Aggregate, down by one point, with a 595-39X.  (Geoff takes the X-Man award with the 39X count; he wins bragging rights).  Ron Dague rounded out the top three places with a 592-24X.

The top Junior for the day was Miss Emma Branson, continuing her sharp eyed hot streak from the Atterbury State Weekend, with a fifth place overall score of 577-17X.

Thanks to all of the shooters who came out for the day.  It was fun and it was a great way to close out the 2022 High Power season.  Our next match will be Winter Offhand on Saturday, November 12 at 9:00. We will shoot our usual 100-yard format; two strings of 20 shots for record (first string will be 22 shots, drop the low 2 as sighters).  We’ll see you then!

Web Note: The web version of the Newsletter has pictures that the mailed version does not because we try to minimize the page count of paper mailings.

October 2022 FWRRC NEWSLETTER

FWRR Club Meeting

The next meeting of the Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club will be held on Monday, October 3, 2022.  Meeting Place: VFW Post 857, located at 2202 West Main Street in Fort Wayne.  Meeting Time: 7:00 p.m.  Food and drink will be available at very reasonable prices before and after the meeting.

Meeting Agenda: Standard meeting format.  In addition, nominations for Club offices will be addressed.  Please make an effort to attend meetings, as a quorum is required to conduct club business.

A Message from the President

“We have an election coming up in December.  If anyone is interested in running, nominations can be made in October.”

“I would like to thank the grass mowers.  This year, the grass could have been cut every week… [due to] rain.

Overall, the range looks good.”

Mowing Crew

The following individuals were members of the 2022 mowing crew:  Bob Bausser, Marty Didion, John Halter, Joe Harbor, Matt Hice, Jim Johnston, Russ McCurdy, Dennie McNabb, Ozzie Ostheimer, Shannon Parks, David Rinaldi, Rick Schwaiger, Ted Smeltzer, Jim Sweeney and Gary Walker.

Mowing Schedule

The 2022 Mowing Schedule is available on the club’s website.  The mowing dates that are scheduled to occur before the December meeting are: 10/5, 10/19 and 11/2.  Dates are tentative, depending on weather and ground conditions.   Mowing times vary according to volunteer availability.  Efforts will be made to provide mowing date and time updates on the website.  The Main Range is closed during mowing and other range maintenance activities.   Pistol Bays 4 and 5 remain open during mowing.  It is recommended that members check the website for updates before traveling to the range.

Newsletter Delivery

Approximately 80% of the membership receives the newsletter via email.  Those members who have email accounts and who currently opt for postal delivery are asked to consider receiving the newsletter via email next year.  Doing so will save printing and postage costs and significant manual labor.  Changes in delivery method will go into effect in February, 2023.

To add or remove your Email address just send an Email to billmac099@yahoo.com with the subject FWRRC-Add  or FWRRC-Delete.

Maintenance Activities

Nothing new to report.

New Members

Please welcome new member Derek Hatman.  Derek was accepted as a member at the August meeting.  

Discipline Reports

ACPDL & USPSA

Tim Wunderlich, reports that ACPDL & USPSA, “…had some great turnouts in the last few months. Tim also notes that “…USPSA practice is getting very busy.”

High-power (HP)

Match Results

August 13th  50/80 Match. 1st Place: Jim Jackson, 770-22X;  2nd Place: Mark Walters, 758-24X;  High Junior: Marshall Rohrbach, 702-5X.

August 18th  Junior 100-yard Fun  Match. 1st Place: Marshall Rohrbach, 479-13X;  2nd Place: Kileen Shaffer, 463-8X;  3rd Place: Mia King, 451-10X.

September 10 th 50/80 Match. 1st Place: Carl Johnson, 773-24X;  2nd Place: Mark Walters, 763-9X;  High Junior: Mia King, 728-10X.

Wildcat Valley 300-yard Championship.  State Champion: Madelyn Schnelle (Junior Girl), 791-31X; First Master: Mark Richard, 779-29X;  First Expert:  Mike Habel, 757-12X, High Junior: Marshall Rohrbach.

Fall Creek 100-yard Championship. State Champion:  Mike King, 786-20X. Other Participants: Mark Richard, 772-17X; Mike Habel, 736-11X; Kileen Shaffer, 678-4X; Addisyn Shull, 517-0X.

ISPRA Full-Course State Championship.  State Champion:  Madelyn Schnelle, 1589-52X; 2nd Place (Silver): Mark Richard, 1581-49X;  3rd Place (Bronze) Mike King, 160-46X; Other Participants: Geoff Branson, 1543-57X: Emma Branson (Junior Girl), 1501-28X.

Leonard Johnson Memorial Match. First – Jerry and Doug Johnson; 764-10X. Second – Jay Werhle and Mark Walters; 761-15X. Third; Tom Easley and Norb Norbert; 742-7X.

Camp Perry, Small Arms Firing School (SAFS)

Four of our five Juniors attended the SAFS at Camp Perry.  (Colton Eads had to travel to Texas A&M for the start of the school year.)  Marshall Rohrbach finished 17th out of 267 competitors in the Excellence in Competition Match to win four points toward his Distinguished Rifleman Badge.  Kileen Shaffer, Addisyn Shull and Mia King placed 79th, 176th and 220th, respectively.

LtCol. Eric Andreasen, former CO of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU), served as FWRRC’s Junior team coach.  Col.  Andreasen stated that they (USAMU) see a lot of Junior teams when the they run matches.  He went on to say that it has been a long time since the AMU staff has seen a group as polite, respectful, courteous, and attentive as our Juniors. Congratulation to our Juniors, their parents and their shooting mentors.

Notes and Reminders:

DO NOT HANDLE FIREARMS WHEN PERSONNEL ARE DOWN RANGE! Proper range etiquette involves opening actions, removing all ammunition from firearms, and stepping away from the firing line.  

MEMBERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BEHAVIOR AND ACTIONS OF THEIR GUESTS.  Members may take a maximum of two guests to the range per visit, not counting family members.  Do not take more guests and/or family members than you are able to directly supervise.  If your guests or family members are new to the shooting sports, it is strongly recommended that the member refrain from shooting so that all of his/her attention can be devoted to supervision.

Please make certain to close the outhouse doors and to lower the toilet seat covers.

For Sale

1) .224 diameter, 90 gr., Sierra, Matchking, BTHP bullets, Qty 250.  Per Larry Beardsley, ‘[will] swap for something”. Contact Larry at FWRRHPDirector@aol.com.

2)   Jewel single-stage trigger for a Remington 700 or 40X. Incorporates safety and bolt release, $180.00.  6.5 mm, 142 gr., Sierra, Matchking, BTHP bullets, Qty 4 boxes.  $50.00/box.  1 lb of Reloader 16, $60.00.  1 lb of  Vihtavuori N550, $65.00.  Contact Mark Strahan at (260) 927-5515 or  ms9568@gmail.com

3) 98 Mauser Sporter in Cal. 270 Win.: Forged bolt handle; Buehler-style safety; Leopold, one-piece base and 1-inch rings; Walnut Monte Carlo stock that accommodates a receiver sight.  $525.00.   Contact Dave Dolezal at (260) 433-1505.

Members who wish to sell shooting-related items may send ad information to Marty Didion at martindidion4@gmail.com. 

Ads must be received three weeks before meetings in order to appear in the next newsletter.

Labor Day has come and gone – so even though the calendar hasn’t said “end of Summer” yet – unofficially summer has drawn to a close. Saturday September 10th was our last 50/80 XTC High Power Match of the summer and we could not have asked for a more beautiful day for a rifle match.  And, as is usual at the end of shooting season, we had some match conflicts with other Clubs and our attendance was down because we had five shooters from FWRR go to the Fall Creek Conservation Club for the Indiana 100-yard State Championship Match.  Nonetheless, we had nine shooters at the line for Saturday’s match.

We had a couple of special guests for the Match. Carl Johnson, an FWRR Distinguished Rifleman (Badge 2160) currently living in southern Indiana showed us that he still has the chops as he was the overall match winner with a score of 773-24X. Carl also had a personal best in Prone Rapid with a 200-11X and was the high Prone Slowfire shooter with a 196-8X.  Jim Schieltz made the trip over from the Lima Sabers – he had a rough day as he had ‘scope issues but before things went sour, he managed to shoot the top Offhand score with a 194-4X.  200-yard Rapid Sitting honors went to Mark Walters with a 197-3X. 

And, congratulations to Miss Mia King – one of our Junior girl person shooters.  This is Mia’s first season shooting high power and on Saturday she put together a score of 725-10X (90.6%), putting her solidly into NRA Expert territory and just into CMP Expert classification.

But, to match the high points of the day, there were several examples of how quickly things can change in high power shooting.  When we started the rapid fire strings, Gary Mabis found that his rifle would not strip rounds from the magazine – making it a straight pull AR-15 (a condition not conducive to shooting in a time limit).  After putting up great Offhand and Sitting Rapid scores, Jim Schiletz’s scope developed issues – shots that were called in the 10/X rings wandered out to the 7 or 8 ring.  Normally, we would blame this on the shooter – but not this time – it was an equipment issue.  The most baffling issue of the day was the disappearing bullets that Mark Walters was shooting. Mark was beating up the 10/X rings. He would fire a shot and it would not plot.  This might happen again on the next shot. We did some experimenting and the only explanation we could logically figure was that the bullets were blowing up as they went downrange – strange indeed.

We are going to shoot a fun match on Thursday afternoon, September 22nd after a quick practice session to get zeroes for .22 rimfire rifles.  The Juniors have wanted to shoot a Rattle Battle Match ever since they learned about it during their SAFS trip to Camp Perry.  We will shoot a mini-Rattle Battle that afternoon.  The Juniors have gotten fairly well organized (they’re doing it all themselves) and Captain King is assigning shooters, figuring out strategies and deciding how she is going to divvy up the 200-rounds of ammo allowed for the four person team for this match.  We are looking for an Old Coot Team to shoot against them, so if you guys want to shoot this match – I have a set of rules and you just need to figure out a Team.

On September 24th, we will shoot the Leonard Johnson Memorial Match.  This has sometimes been called “The World’s Toughest Team Match”.  Each shooter on two person teams will shoot 20 rounds with .22 rimfire rifles at 200-yards on the NRA SR-42 target, a reduction of the SR-3 target to simulate the 300-yard stage of the National Match Course at 200 yards.  Now, as if this was not already a hard enough target – shooters will move back to 300-yards and fire another 20-rounds each at that same target! It is a challenging match and it draws a number of shooters with unique rifles!

We close the high power season on October 9 with a 60-round Mid-Range match.  That match will start at 11:00, so if folks want to come from afar – they won’t have to start out at oh-dark-thirty. We resume Winter Offhand Matches on Saturday, November 12 with a 40-round offhand match.

Wildcat Valley Rifle and Pistol Club hosted the Indiana 300-Yard Reduced Course State Championship on Saturday, August 27th and the Fort Wayne Rifle and Pistol Club was well represented at the event.  Mark Richard, Mike Habel, Mike King and Juniors Marshall Rohrbach, Kileen Shaffer and Addiysn Shull made up the shooting contingent and Mike Grannis and Larry Beardsley were there as the support group.  Larry acted as the Range Officer for the match and Mike was the Statistical Officer as scores were tallied at match end.

The 300-Yard Reduced Course State Championship title was captured by Wildcat Valley Junior Madelyn Schnelle with an impressive 791-31X score.  Madelyn dropped 5 points in the first 10 shots in Offhand and then dropped only four more points across the rest of the match.

FWRR’s Mark Richard took First Master with 779-29X.  Mike Habel continued a season long hot streak taking First Expert with a 757-12X.  Marshall Rohrback came away with First Junior, two points behind Doc with a 755-12X.

Miss Addiysn gets the recovery and heart attack award for the day.  In her second string of prone rapid fire, she had a round mis-feed about halfway through her second magazine.  Addy racked the bolt, ejected the misfed cartridge and then finished off the magazine, but she was still one shot short of the ten shots she needed for the string.  Time was running out and the last round was somewhere underneath her. She rolled over on her right side (she’s a lefty), found the loose round, reloaded it – closed the bolt, got back in position on target and got off the final shot just as the last second ticked off the clock and I whistled “CEASE FIRE”.  She closed out her second rapid fire prone string with a 96-1X score!  GREAT RECOVERY Young Lady!

The next match in the Indiana Triple Crown of State Matches is the 100-Yard Reduced Course Championship at Fall Creek on September 10th and the series completes with a two-day dual 80-round tournament (1600 point aggregate) at Camp Atterbury on September 17 and 18.

The Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club has been around for more that 100 years. We have evidence that hints that as far back as 1914 there was an organized group of shooters who later became the Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club, but there is a surprising lack of recorded history. 

Reflecting that long history, on occasion artifacts occasionally show up that give us some insight into our ancestors.  Recently an old award plaque wandered into the Bruggeman Building (the mower house) that made us do some looking.  The trophy is “The Major John C. Houck Memorial Trophy”, presented by Lt. Colonel Sam L. A. Bowlin.

The trophy is a walnut plaque with a prone rifleman and a brass plate with names of individuals to whom the award was given. The trophy is in pretty good shape, but the shooter has lost the barrel of his rifle over the years.  It appears to have been intermittently awarded – there is not an award noted for every year.  It was first awarded in 1963 to J. H. Miller who scored 134 x 150.  This was probably a 30-shot match fired on the old 5V target.  By 1967 the match format had changed when Lynn Richter won the award with a 287 x 300 score, a 30 round match on the new 10X target.

By 1973 the match format had changed again when Lowell Black won with a 339 x 400 score.  The award stood vacant until 1987 when Mike Grannis won it with a 294 x 300 score (another format change, back to a 30 round match).  Mike recalls that the match was “ … kind of like a President’s 100 Match”.  The plaque was awarded to Mike Gingher in 1990 and last awarded to John Hoham in 1991.  Its whereabouts since then is a mystery until it showed up in the Bruggeman Building.

Now, who are the two individuals involved in the name and donation of the award?  As of now, we don’t know a lot.  We find First Lieutenant John C. Houck listed in the early 1920’s as a member of the Fort Wayne contingent of the Indiana National Guard and in 1925 there are records of him shooting in Indiana rifle and pistol matches with the Indiana Guard teams.  There is evidence that by 1945 he had been promoted to Major where he served the Philippines as a company commander.  The fact that the trophy is the “Major John Houck Memorial Trophy” infers that Major Houck had passed away some time prior to 1963, the date the trophy was first awarded.

Lieutenant Colonel Sam L. A. Bowlin is also a bit of a mystery.  Old records show him as the Post Intelligence Officer at Fort McClellan, Alabama in late 1942.  In 1965 he shows up in the Army Reserve Magazine as being on the Fifth United States Army Team that shot the first year that the Army Reserve was represented at the National Matches at Camp Perry.  We know from club memories that he lived down around Decatur – but not a lot more than that. 

The trophy will be mounted in the new clubhouse as a reminder of the FWRR’s heritage.

The Juniors finally got their chance to “Go Downtown” – try their hand at shooting 600-yards. 

It took us most of two High Power Shooting seasons, but we arranged a session at the Hillside 600-yard range.  They have shot a lot of matches at 200 and 300-yards, but I was curious to see how they would respond to their first try at shooting at a target over a third-of-a-mile away from them.  I was not too concerned about actual scores – we were not going to do a lot of knob turning on scopes – I wanted them to see that shooting at 600-yards wasn’t all that different from 300-yards – it just takes the bullet longer to get there!   

I should have known what was going to happen; I should not doubt this group of young women. I had them put their 300-yard zeroes on their rifles and then come up an additional thirteen minutes of elevation.  Most of them were on paper the first shot and after some sighting shots, they started a 20-shot string at 600-yards. 

When the smoke cleared and the brass was picked up, I was impressed by how well they did. Miss Mia shot the high score of the evening with a 176-3X.  It was a well centered group and it did not show the two-group tendency she has shown on 300-yard prone targets.  (She really did shoot 20-shots, I didn’t do a sighter conversion for her). Good job young lady! 

Miss Addiysn was close on her heels with a 175-1X.  Her group was well centered as well.  I kidded Addiysn that only six weeks ago she was killing antennas and sensors and now she is solidly holding the black at 600-yards, a lot of improvement. 

Miss Kileen shot a group about a minute and a half high with a 162-1X, but it was well centered and had it been down a bit it would have clustered in the black.  As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t into a lot of knob turning for this session or we would have tried to move the group a bit.   Kileen noted that at 600-yards, it just takes a little wiggle to move things a lot. 

Mr. McKee, the Hillside Range Officer and an FWRR member, closed the day with a comment; “Beard, you have a bunch of good shooters there”. 

Way to go Ladies; you make us proud!

Saturday. August 13th continued our string of good luck days for high power matches.  It was overcast most of the morning, about 55-degrees at 8:02 when we sent the first shot downrange.  When we finished at 11:04, it was only 64-degrees, a very comfortable day for shooting.  Our ranks of shooters were thinned out a bit; we had five of our regular shooters call in sick (either with WooHooFloo or recovering from it) and two shooters decided that they wanted to  uphold the FWRR reputation at the 600-yard match at Atterbury .  Even so we had eleven shooters on the line and we had a good match.

It was Jim Jackson’s day; he took first place for the match aggregate with a 770-22X and he dominated both prone stages, with a 399-16X across both prone stages.  He dropped one point in the first prone rapid stage, cleaned the second prone rapid and then continued to clean prone slow with a 200-9X.  Congratulations to Jim for a great match.

Second place went to Mark Walters with a 758-24X – third going to a guest from South Bend, Pete Yarbro with a 751-13X.  (Pete is a guest, but not a stranger to us).   Mia King took advantage of a massive two-magazine  cross-fire to take top Junior with a 711-4X count to take the Top Junior place.

 Marshall Rohrbach, one of our Juniors, won the Offhand Match with a 188-1X.  Mark Walters took first for Sitting Rapid with 199-8X .  And, Jim Jackson dominated Prone Rapid (199-7X) and Prone Slow (200-9X) to take first in both matches.

We had an issue with slow target response in all of the rapid fire stages and after I got home and looked at some of the information stored in our line servers, I was able to figure out why.  I’ll try to be brief.  I can look at valid and invalid shots in each target log.  In the rapid fire stages there were many invalid shots logged in each string.  Our targets operate on sound – and yesterday morning was a cool, humid morning.  Sound carried well yesterday. Shots from adjoining targets were being logged, and the system had to decide if they were valid on-target shots or invalid shots. The system got overloaded and it took it some time for it to figure things out.  No shots were lost, but the slow response caused confusion with some shooters.

To prevent this from happening in the future, I will not simultaneously shoot adjacent targets on rapid fire strings.  We will shoot odd targets then even targets to prevent this from happening again.  I apologize for any confusion that was caused – we’re still learning even after operating this long with the system.  (Please, remind me of this in case I forget…).

Our next match will be on Thursday, August 18th – a regular practice night.  This will be an NRA National Match Course (50-rounds) fired from the 100-yard firing line on the electronic targets.  Just a caution, there may be a waterhole in front of the line, so bring bug spray for ‘skeeters.  This is a “No Match Fee” free match, but if you want scores sent to the NRA, please bring $5 for NRA processing fees.

ONE MORE THING … Saturday, August 27th will be the Indiana State 300-Yard Championship at Wildcat Valley.  It looks like we have a group of Juniors going down to shoot and it would be great to have a FWRR contingent there to take back 300-Yard Bragging Rights for 2022.

WOW!  While I was out playing around with the Juniors, I missed a heck of a match back here at home.

We had thirteen shooters come to the line for the July 30 Mid-Range Tournament.  It was a combined any-sight/iron-sight tournament and there were five shooters who chose to shoot iron sights in one or more matches.  SO – since I had promised to recognize iron sight shooters, I chose to make Iron Sight and Overall Match awards.

The Iron Sight Match was designated as Match 3 and five shooters shot irons in that match.  Iron Sight match standings were:

First:                     Mark Walters     192-7X

Second:                Dean Drews       181-9X (CREEDMOOR!)

Third:                    Mike Habel         181-2X 

Overall  Tournament Standings were:

First: Ron Dague          596-36X(CREEDMOOR! – again)    (Scope, scope, scope)

Second:     Jim Jackson         596-29X        (Scope, scope, scope)

Third:      Mark Walters     589-30X                       (Scope, scope, irons)

There were several  198’s and 199’s shot in individual matches. Ron Dague shot a 200-14X clean in Match 2 and and Jim Jackson cleaned his target in Match 1 with a 200-11X score.  It speaks very well to the quality of our shooters when both the iron sight and overall results had standings decided by X-counts!

Thanks again to Mike Grannis for doing the Stat Office and Admin duties and to Mark Walters for running the line and  shooting  at the same time.  It’s hard to do both things at once.  And, thanks to all of the shooters who made things run smoothly.